..,The next item on my agenda is a short piece, unfinished, which would fall under the category of ‘Proto-Mystery Shopper Tales.’ This is the only fragment still extant from the adventure so related, and, in fact, does predate my current biographer and general teller of tales, Stanley.

This bit, actually, was composed by my former business partner in an old import/export concern we operated decades ago by the name of Shurt Blessing (someone, I’m sure, I’ve mentioned somewhere before now, hmm).

If you take a look at the title list for not only stories, but poems through that link, you will likely recognize any number of titles I have mentioned, or parts of works, over the years. Reason being, they’re my stories! HaHa-

Yes, those were tales I’d formulated, some from imagination, surely, but others from Honest-to-God experiences, and regaled my partner with many a day and night at our old warehouse as we processed & catalogued shipments of spiced netting, bamboo snorkels or tiki doll umbrellas.

And he’d always had a good ear for a ripe story. Took that with him after we’d amicably sold our business and went our separate ways; me, ultimately into the ranks of the ‘Guardians of Commerce’, the Mystery Shoppers… and he, onto the open roads of the world as an itinerant minstrel and vagabond global citizen.

In any event, I had reason to receive a much appreciated post card from him recently, and we’ve re-opened lines of communication which prompted me to post the re-visitation of this old caper (at least, in part) once he informed me he’d get up the part he still had.

[[[Update: one of the features of this story, as it had changed a good deal over time, was that it would be an historical adventure featuring the now-defunct ‘Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’…I’ve recent news that some materials I had not wanted made public were going to be done so in a manner that did not have my sanction (but not by Shurt–by another). I’ve gotten that project temporarily blocked– but some other material about that Olde political entity, while not sanctioned, was to be included in that unauthorized project as well. In keeping with this thread, I’m reminded of it now because of events taking place in our world and recognize how much the way things go around, come around:

I wonder if maybe things could be expedited if Hungary, Poland, the fmr. Czeckoslovakia… and maybe the Baltic countries shouldn’t just leave the EU and form their own Union. Based perhaps on the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. They do not seem to be at all happy w/ the EU, and Russia to the east of them is an ever-present threat as well.

For safeties sake, in numbers, a collective arrangement like that may provide the freedom from demographic pressures they seek, as well as security to ‘do their own thing.’]]]